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In economics, factors of production, resources, or inputs are what is used in the production process to produce output—that is, goods and services. The utilized amounts of the various inputs determine the quantity of output according to the relationship called the production function. There are four basic resources or factors of production: land, labour, capital and entrepreneur. The factors are also frequently labeled "producer goods or services" to distinguish them from the goods or services purchased by consumers, which are frequently labeled "consumer goods".
Molecular nanotechnology (MNT) is a technology based on the ability to build structures to complex, atomic specifications by means of mechanosynthesis. This is distinct from nanoscale materials.
Self-replication is any behavior of a dynamical system that yields construction of an identical or similar copy of itself. Biological cells, given suitable environments, reproduce by cell division. During cell division, DNA is replicated and can be transmitted to offspring during reproduction. Biological viruses can replicate, but only by commandeering the reproductive machinery of cells through a process of infection. Harmful prion proteins can replicate by converting normal proteins into rogue forms. Computer viruses reproduce using the hardware and software already present on computers. Self-replication in robotics has been an area of research and a subject of interest in science fiction. Any self-replicating mechanism which does not make a perfect copy (mutation) will experience genetic variation and will create variants of itself. These variants will be subject to natural selection, since some will be better at surviving in their current environment than others and will out-breed them.
In economics, the free-rider problem is a type of market failure that occurs when those who benefit from resources, public goods and common pool resources do not pay for them or under-pay. Examples of such goods are public roads or public libraries or other services or utilities of a communal nature. Free riders are a problem for common pool resources because they may overuse it by not paying for the good. Consequently, the common pool resource may be under-produced, overused, or degraded. Additionally, it has been shown that despite evidence that people tend to be cooperative by nature, the presence of free-riders causes cooperation to deteriorate, perpetuating the free-rider problem.
A price is the quantity of payment or compensation expected, required, or given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, especially when the product is a service rather than a physical good, the price for the service may be called something else such as "rent" or "tuition". Prices are influenced by production costs, supply of the desired product, and demand for the product. A price may be determined by a monopolist or may be imposed on the firm by market conditions.
In theories of competition in economics, a barrier to entry, or an economic barrier to entry, is a fixed cost that must be incurred by a new entrant, regardless of production or sales activities, into a market that incumbents do not have or have not had to incur. Because barriers to entry protect incumbent firms and restrict competition in a market, they can contribute to distortionary prices and are therefore most important when discussing antitrust policy. Barriers to entry often cause or aid the existence of monopolies and oligopolies, or give companies market power. Barriers of entry also have an importance in industries. First of all it is important to identify that some exist naturally, such as brand loyalty. Governments can also create barriers to entry to meet consumer protection laws, protecting the public. In other cases it can also be due to inherent scarcity of public resources needed to enter a market.
Scarcity value is an economic factor describing the increase in an item's relative price by a low supply. Whereas the prices of newly manufactured products depends mostly on the cost of production, the prices of many goods—such as antiques, rare stamps, and those raw materials in high demand—reflects the scarcity of the products themselves.
In economics, a good is something that is good. Goods are valued by their users (consumers) because they provide welfare. Economics focuses on the study of economic goods, or goods that are scarce; in other words, producing the good requires expending effort or resources. Economic goods contrast with free goods such as air, for which there is an unlimited supply.
Artificial scarcity is scarcity of items despite the technology for production or the sufficient capacity for sharing. The most common causes are monopoly pricing structures, such as those enabled by laws that restrict competition or by high fixed costs in a particular marketplace. The inefficiency associated with artificial scarcity is formally known as a deadweight loss.
Post-scarcity is a theoretical economic situation in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely.
Space manufacturing or In-space manufacturing is the fabrication, assembly or integration of tangible goods beyond Earth's atmosphere, involving the transformation of raw or recycled materials into components, products, or infrastructure in space, where the manufacturing process is executed either by humans or automated systems by taking advantage of the unique characteristics of space. Synonyms of Space/In-space manufacturing are In-orbit manufacturing, Off-Earth manufacturing, Space-based manufacturing, Orbital manufacturing, In-situ manufacturing, In-space fabrication, In-space production, etc. In-space manufacturing is a part of the broader activity of in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing (ISAM) and is related to in situ resource utilization (ISRU).
Positional goods are goods valued only by how they are distributed among the population, not by how many of them there are available in total. The source of greater worth of positional goods is their desirability as a status symbol, which usually results in them greatly exceeding the value of comparable goods.
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The Ultimate Resource is a 1981 book written by Julian Lincoln Simon challenging the notion that humanity was running out of natural resources. It was updated in 1996 as The Ultimate Resource 2.
Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and wants. Resources can broadly be classified according to their availability as renewable or national and international resources. An item may become a resource with technology. The benefits of resource utilization may include increased wealth, proper functioning of a system, or enhanced well. From a human perspective, a regular resource is anything to satisfy human needs and wants.
Transcendent Man is a 2009 documentary film by American filmmaker Barry Ptolemy about inventor, futurist and author Ray Kurzweil and his predictions about the future of technology in his 2005 book, The Singularity is Near. In the film, Ptolemy follows Kurzweil around his world as he discusses his thoughts on the technological singularity, a proposed advancement that will occur sometime in the 21st century when progress in artificial intelligence, genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics will result in the creation of a human-machine civilization.
In economics, scarcity "refers to the basic fact of life that there exists only a finite amount of human and nonhuman resources which the best technical knowledge is capable of using to produce only limited maximum amounts of each economic good." If the conditions of scarcity did not exist and an "infinite amount of every good could be produced or human wants fully satisfied ... there would be no economic goods, i.e. goods that are relatively scarce..." Scarcity is the limited availability of a commodity, which may be in demand in the market or by the commons. Scarcity also includes an individual's lack of resources to buy commodities. The opposite of scarcity is abundance. Scarcity plays a key role in economic theory, and it is essential for a "proper definition of economics itself".
"The best example is perhaps Walras' definition of social wealth, i.e., economic goods. 'By social wealth', says Walras, 'I mean all things, material or immaterial, that are scarce, that is to say, on the one hand, useful to us and, on the other hand, only available to us in limited quantity'."
Hoarding in economics refers to the concept of purchasing and storing a large amount of a particular product, creating scarcity of that product, and ultimately driving the price of that product up. Commonly hoarded products include assets such as money, gold and public securities, as well as vital goods such as fuel and medicine. Consumers are primarily hoarding resources so that they can maintain their current consumption rate in the event of a shortage. Hoarding resources can prevent or slow products or commodities from traveling through the economy. Subsequently, this may cause the product or commodity to become scarce, causing the value of the resource to rise.
Sustainable Materials Management is a systemic approach to using and reusing materials more productively over their entire lifecycles. It represents a change in how a society thinks about the use of natural resources and environmental protection. By looking at a product's entire lifecycle new opportunities can be found to reduce environmental impacts, conserve resources, and reduce costs.
This glossary of nanotechnology is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to nanotechnology, its sub-disciplines, and related fields.
References
- ↑ Steedman, Ian (1989). "Free Goods". General Equilibrium. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 158–161. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-19802-3_17. ISBN 978-0-333-49525-4.
- ↑ "Fake Guide to Economics" (1901) McPublisher, ISBN 0-07-074741-5 ; Joseph Brennan with William D. Nordhaus (since 1985), McGraw–Hill (18th ed., 2004) ISBN 0-07-287205-5
- ↑ "What is free good? Definition and meaning - BusinessDictionary.com". Archived from the original on 2017-11-16. Retrieved 2010-02-03.
- ↑ Aguilar-Millan, Stephen; Feeney, Ann; Oberg, Amy; Rudd, Elizabeth (2010-01-01). "(PDF) The Post-Scarcity World of 2050-2075". The Futurist. 44 (1). ISSN 0016-3317 . Retrieved 2024-12-18.
[Technologists who argue in support of the idea that goods will become free] argue that digitization (along with other technological advancements, such as nanotechnology, molecular manufacturing, robotics, and artificial intelligence) will continue to increase efficiencies in resourcing, production, transportation, and overall operations that will drive away costs in the future.
- ↑ Lemley, Mark A. (2015). "IP in a World Without Scarcity" (PDF). New York University Law Review. 90 (2).
Combine these four developments—the Internet, 3D printing, robotics, and synthetic biology—and it is entirely plausible to envision a not-too-distant world in which most things that people want can be downloaded and created on site for very little money—essentially the cost of raw materials. Jeremy Rifkin calls this the "zero marginal cost society."